Yes, this is my life

This is my "introduction" for new Mentees and maybe just for those of you just beginning to read my blog. There's nothing really unique about me or my story. I'm just an average 37 year old mom of three in most aspects. I guess the only difference is that I became a widow at age 34. That is a very young age to lose your spouse. My husband and I grew up in the same subdivision in a small town outside of St. Louis, Missouri. Our brothers were both named Jimmy/Jimmie and the same age. They were friends first. I met my husband Mike when I was a freshman in high school. He had just graduated and enlisted in the Marines. So I guess you could say I'd known him pretty much my whole life. We were in each others lives in some way or the other for 20 years when he died. We were married for 11 of them. Friends first, partners for life. We got married in Vegas. In a Drive Thru. We were married in January of 2003. Two weeks before the war was officially declared in Iraq. He

Natural Disaster and Post Traumatic Stress are not that much different. What could they possibly have in common? They don't discriminate. I've often compared our traumatic loss to a tornado ( I grew up in Missouri so that's the natural disaster I know best. Could be any one of them) . It blew through so fast and furious, leaving such annihilation in it's wake. PTSD and a Tornado are alike in many ways. There is no way to tell which person or which home will be destroyed. All they require are the right conditions. You can have two houses standing side by side on the same street in the exact same tornado and one will be ripped from the foundation as the other stands completely intact. PTSD works exactly this way too. Two people who experience the exact same trauma can have completely opposite outcomes. There really is no way to predict who when or where exactly. Just like a natural disaster. We can identify warning signs for both. But even a siren won't determine ex

Every year around this time I get sick. My immunities are already weakened and the stress, lack of sleep and depression wreak havoc on my body. I've got my signature sinus infection. It's that time. I've accepted it. I'm not super thrilled. I'd prefer to not be Ill but I know why and I just expect it. This year I've noticed things are a bit different in my grief. I'm not sad for me or longing for what could have or should have been. I'm just so incredibly sad with his absence on this Earth. The void is overwhelming. He had so many plans. He had dreams. The thing about loving someone is when they achieve their dreams it's as much a win to you. I'm sad he didn't have the chance. He wasn't a perfect person. Not by any means. He was flawed and toward the end I don't think he even recognized himself when he looked in the mirror. He was a stranger to us both...but I knew his hope and dreams were still in there. It was just buried undernea

I think there are no coincidences in life. Everything happens for a reason. I don't always know the reason until I'm meant to know. I am okay with that. When you are of the opinion that nothing is chance the world seems a bit magical and situations can even be divine. Perhaps it's my convoluted imagination or simply wishful thinking. Does it matter? Nope. I'm not hurting anyone or myself in this thinking and it makes me smile. I will give you an example of this occuring:  Tuesday after school I took the kids to Del Mar Beach on base. It is the ONE place where I can almost always feel Mike's presence. It was our place. It's where we built sandcastle with the kids, jumped waves and had several family photos done. It's so strong, this feeling that it brings tears to my eyes just stepping in the sand. So, back to my story...we went to the beach this week. As the kids are jumping in the shallow waves I walked along the shore line. As per my usual I began to tear

I don't think Mike had any idea how far wide and deep his suicide would touch. It was much like a domino effect. It didn't just change me, my kids, his parents and siblings. His snap decision. His warped notion he was doing us a favor was so far off. The three year mark since his death is in a few weeks and the gloom is upon us. I thought it was just me but I'm realizing so many people were negatively impacted by his death. My sister who was in our home the night he took his life is also feeling the heaviness. I have so much sadness that she her son and husband were witness to such horror and my husband was at fault. It makes me at fault by proxy.  For the rest of my life I will worry this event will cause a relapse in her sobriety or other issues. I held my breath in the years since he died because I know this sort of trauma can be a perfect storm. You may or may not know that my husband killed himself in our garage. It was a Sunday. By the time we were able to go it was

Next month is the 3rd year mark of Mike's death. I can already tell it's taking a toll on my body and mind. I don't even realize it's happening until it's already happening. What I mean is I can prepare myself as much as I try and it subconsciously occurs anyway. My anxiety is pretty high. I'm not sleeping again. I am more startled by visual stimulus and have the obsessive repeating thoughts of the night he died. It's like it's on a loop in my brain playing over and over. I go minute by minute though the events that unfolded that night with a fine tooth comb in my mind. The look on his face. The sadness in his voice. The gun in his hand. The terror I felt when I heard him rack the rifle. The fear paralyzed me. I didn't scream. That lone gunshot. The silence that followed. My confusion. Irrational as it is, I continue to relive it. Every day in the weeks leading up to the "anniversary" my thoughts are filled with so many emotions. Every day

All loss is hard. There really isn't such a thing as an easy death or easier grief that follows the death of a loved one. I have lost many loved ones in my 37 years. The loss is different each time but I can't say any of them were easy.  The deaths most profound in my life were the one l heald closest bonds to naturally.  My best friend died in a drunk driving accident when I was 16. My grandmother died when I was 25. My favorite aunt died when I was pregnant with my middle son. My grandpa died the following year. My husband died in 2013. Like I said, none were particularly easy but of the losses I have experiences the traumatic/sudden/suicides hit me the deepest and took the longest to come to terms with. By the time my husband took his life my best friend had been dead longer than she lived on this earth and I was still not "over" the loss. I knew when Mike died that feeling would be as much or more. Just anticipating the pain coming was unbearable. I knew from my